How to Love the Veronica Mars Movie Even if You Never Saw the Show

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How to Love the Veronica Mars Movie Even if You Never Saw the Show

Veronica Mars was a show; now it's a movie, with plenty of help from its fans. But as beloved as the UPN/CW teen cult classic was, it's not hard to imagine that you've forgotten some of its finer points—after all, the series only ran from 2004-2007. Or maybe you never even watched it.

Either way, with the movie out today, we thought you might need a refresher. If you have to keep one thing in mind, remember this: don't trust anyone. After all, even under the teen-soap trappings, this is a detective show, and that means things are rarely what they seem. The Dandy Warhols might have sung "a long time ago, we used to be friends" in the show's popular theme song, but real friendships were few and far between. Machinations? Sure. Frenemies? Oh, most definitely. In fact, any guide to the Marsiverse is more than just a who's who—it's a who-has-beef-with-whom. And trust us, there are plenty of chefs.

Veronica MarsThe secret origin of Veronica Mars is impressively dark, especially for a TV show aimed at a teen audience. Her best friend Lilly Kane was murdered, which led to her own parents’ marriage falling apart—Veronica’s father was ousted as sheriff after failing to catch the killer, which put pressure on the relationship—and a misguided effort to curry social favor resulted in Veronica being drugged and raped at a party. No wonder she was a hard-bitten cynic when she first appeared on our screens.

Things didn’t get any better from there. It turned out that Lilly had been murdered by the father of her boyfriend, Logan, who Veronica herself was romantically involved with at the time. Meanwhile, the person who had raped Veronica was eventually identified as an acquaintance of hers—and whenever it looked like Veronica may have a chance of a happy life, something (more often than not perennial bad boy Logan) would appear to cause trouble. At the beginning of the movie, Veronica appears to have settled down and put the darkness of her teenage years behind her (without going to FBI Academy, it seems), but what kind of movie would it be if something didn’t come back to haunt her?

Keith MarsVeronica’s father, and one of the two primary contenders for Best TV Dad Ever, American Edition (the other being The O.C.’s Sandy Cohen, of course). Once the sheriff of crime-filled Neptune, California, Keith became a private detective after being forced out of his position following the murder of Lilly Kane. By the end of the series, however, Keith had not only won back the respect of the town, but he was up for election to return as sheriff. Did he win enough votes? Was he doomed to life as a private dick? WE MAY NEVER KNOW. (Actually, we will know. Like, today. As soon we see the movie.)

Logan EchollsAs the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer might put it, Veronica’s main love interest Logan Echolls is an a-hole. He has plenty of reasons to be that way: he was alternately abused and ignored by his parents—one of whom turned out to be an egomaniacal murderer—and as a result grew up without any kind of moral influence.

In many ways, his relationship with Veronica offered him some form of salvation. Or it would have, except that, in true a-hole fashion, he managed to self-sabotage whenever things looked like they could be going well, even if he did so with the very best of intentions. (He was big on defending Veronica’s honor, usually missing the point that she could do that pretty well herself.) Consider their love one that may not be entirely unrequited, but could never quite be completely fulfilled, either… unless the movie demonstrates otherwise.

Stosh “Piz” PiznarskiAnd then there was Piz. Ignore the absolutely ridiculous name, and you’re left with a character who was in many ways the anti-Logan: a genuinely good guy, almost to his detriment. He met Veronica in college and quickly developed a crush on her. Despite more than one rejection, his inherent goodness—and the support of both Veronica’s father and his friend Wallace—won her over, and the two began dating by the end of the series, although he remained uncertain whether or not Veronica was truly over Logan. As trailers for the movie have suggested, he was probably right to have some doubts on that subject.

Wallace FennelAlongside Keith Mars, we can pretty much consider Wallace officially The Only Other Good Man In Neptune. A high school transplant who only met Veronica after her origin as a noir detective hero, he managed to fulfill the prerequisite requirements for sidekick duty (Be funny, pure of heart and always prepared to act as hype man) while simultaneously lacking any kind of sexual chemistry with the lead. For his sins, Wallace never really developed much as a character beyond being essentially good and easily led, which makes the idea of meeting up with him a decade later particularly interesting: Whose spell has he fallen under post-Veronica?

Dick CasablancasIf Logan is an a-hole, what does that make the aptly-named Dick? Well, far less self-destructive, for one—and less self-aware in general. A perennial thorn in Veronica’s side, Dick has the strange distinction of being more generally annoying, but also less dangerous, than those he hangs around with, whether it’s his best friend Logan or his brother, Cassidy (who just happens to be the man who raped Veronica years earlier). For years, Dick has survived by seeming harmless compared with those around him, but perhaps he’s been playing a particularly long con all this time.

Cindy “Mac” MackenzieAnother of Veronica’s rare high school friends, Mac entered the show as a problem to be dealt with thanks to some ill-considered hacking escapades (Yes, she’s one of those early 2000s “hacker” characters that we all remember so fondly). Realizing that someone with “l33t hax0r skillz” could be useful to a teen detective with ethical boundary issues, Veronica soon invited her into her social cliche, especially when the two attended the same college. As with Wallace, Mac was more of a sidekick than a fully fleshed character, but that’s what makes the prospect of seeing her again more appealing: What became of her in a world that’s now more tolerant of girl geeks?

Eli “Weevil” NavarroOh, Weevil. If Logan was the bad boy stereotype personified, then Weevil was the quintessential boy from the wrong side of the tracks. Leader of a bike gang and always in trouble with the law, Weevil nonetheless has his own ideas of right and wrong, something that’s complicated by the fact that Veronica likes to implicate him in schemes that may be for a greater good but tend to involve breaking some pesky law. When last seen, he was trying to go straight despite Veronica’s influence. When he shows up in the movie, will he be on the side of the angels, or will Veronica have two ghosts from her past to rescue?